characteristics, personal and personality charac-
teristics, topics and tasks, and cultural back-
ground. From this review, we would predict
more gazing in the following situations:
•You are discussing easy, impersonal topics.
•You are interested in your partner’s reac-
tions and are interpersonally involved.
•You like or love your partner.
•You are from a culture that emphasizes
visual contact in interaction.
•You are an extravert and not shy.
•You have high affiliative or inclusion needs.
•You are dependent on your partner, and the
partner has been unresponsive.
•You are listening rather than talking.
•You are female.
•You do not have a mental disorder such as
depression, autism, or schizophrenia.
•You are not embarrassed, ashamed, sor-
rowful, sad, or trying to hide something.
The preceding list is not exhaustive. Indeed, some
of the findings depend on certain important quali-
fications. For example, you may have less gaze and
less mutual gaze when you are physically close—
unless you happen to love your partner and want
to get as close physically and psychologically as
you can. This list is not intended to replace the
qualified principles that appear in the chapter.
The last part of this chapter dealt with pupil
dilation and constriction. We reviewed the find-
ings of Eckhard Hess and others who have pur-
sued his ideas. At this time, pupil dilation has
been associated with arousal, attentiveness, men-
tal effort, interest, and perceptual orientation.
Aside from Hess’s own work, however, mixed
support has been found for the idea that pupils
reflect attitudinal states. Dilation occurs under
conditions that seem to represent positive atti-
tudes, but not much support exists for the belief
that constriction of pupils is associated with neg-
ative attitudes.
Answers to Figure 10-2: (a) happy, (b) afraid,
(c) disgusted, (d) distressed, (e) guilty, (f) thought-
ful, (g) flirting, (h) arrogant.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. How do you use gaze in your everyday life?
When are you more likely to gaze at someone
for a long period of time? When are you more
likely to gaze for a very short period of time?
2. Watch yourself in a mirror, and try to convey
the following emotions using only your eyes
and eyebrows: fear, anger, disgust, surprise,
happiness, and sadness. How do your eye
positions and movements change? How sim-
ilar are your expressions to those you see on
other people’s faces every day?
3. Try to recall a time when you had a conver-
sation with someone with a physical disabil-
ity, someone on crutches or in a wheelchair,
for example. Did your gazing patterns
change when interacting with this person as
opposed to interacting with an able-bodied
person? How did your gazing patterns
change?
4. As an experiment, try looking continuously
at the eye region of a person you are
conversing with. Is this difficult? Did the per-
son react to this in any way—for example, by
reducing gaze, moving back, or commenting?
5. People of higher status are sometimes said to
gaze more and for longer periods than people
of lower status. What do you think of this?
Think of examples that would and would
not be supportive of this theory.
6. Go to a bus or elevator that is crowded and
observe how you, as well as the other people,
use gaze in such a circumstance. How much,
when, where, and at whom do people gaze?
322 PART IV THE COMMUNICATORS’BEHAVIOR